Game On!

Jan 3 Travel Montages in 5E

OK, you're the GM, and it's time for your players to move from A to B. It might take hours, days, or even months in game time, but you don't want to roleplay every single incident that takes place on the road. "You see a puddle in the road, what do you do?" "Um, we walk around it?"You can handwave the entire journey, and just cut to "You arrive in Plotville, everyone seems tense."

However, that makes it feel like teleporting. Which is great if the party actually teleports, but if you want to make travel memorable, yet not take more than a few minutes at the table, you can use a travel montage.

A montage in a roleplaying game is when you go around the table, and everyone makes something up in a collaborative fashion. It's often a time to set the dice aside and show how cool the characters are without worrying about initiative order and skill checks.

(I first ran into montages in the 13th Age roleplaying game. And I put a travel montage into The Sun Below: Sleeping Lady, a Numenera adventure. The concept is system independent.)

Here's how it works. You (as the GM), point at one player. I like to pick someone good at improvisation. "Stace, describe a problem that stops the group's travel. It can be anything, a flood, robbers, a three headed giant, just come up with a problem, not the solution. Your party will get by, because" (then point to the next person sitting clockwise at the table) "Jer will solve it. Don't say how."

After the problem has been described, turn to the next character. "Jer, how do you get the party past this obstacle? You can use your background, your class powers (which won't be used up), or anything. This is your time to shine. Jer, what do you do?"

We allow pretty much any solution to work. We do steer the player away from things that break the mood we're going for. Silly is great in some games, not in others. Remember the player doesn't have to roll dice, so talking their way past robbers, jumping over a chasm, building a raft, and so on, just works.

Option: Inspiration

At our table, we'll give each player inspiration once they tell us how they solved the problem. Some GMs use less inspiration than we do, so if this feels excessive in your game, just ignore it.

Back to the Montage

Once Jer has solved the problem, we'll ask him to come up with a new problem for the next character to solve, going around the table clockwise. Everyone makes up a problem, and everyone makes up a solution. Once the first player solves her problem, the montage is done. Now, instead of three sessions micro-managing the travel, or handwaving the entire journey, the players have a memorable experience, each character will shine, and only a few minutes have past at the table.